Social and political issues related to Singapore and the South East Asia region. A blog which attempts to do so in a non-trivial manner treating opposing views with the respect they deserve.
Contributions are welcomed from all regardless of your political persuasion.

Estimate figures, "already estimated to exceed $100 billion in a nation of just over 3.3 million citizens, are set for a top up from a record current account surplus the country has in its balance of payments with the rest of the world." (see linked article above).

This excess may explain the current slump in investment in Singapore by foreign investors, but this money, so far, appears to simply be lying in an account somewhere, while the unemployment rate reaches all time highs, GST increases, etc...

I have some simple questions.

Why don't they invest the money that the population of Singapore created, into Singapore?

Or is it to be invested regionally, AGAIN?

Singapore is part of the South East Asia region and the international community has not viewed Singapore as a priority for investment. In order for Singapore to play its part in the region, surely investment has to happen either internally or externally. The external option has been refused.

So, the 5.9% of those Singaporeans must be roaring
"Show us the money..."

11 Dec 2003

Singapore has introduced new laws giving local authorities sweeping powers to take pre-emptive action against so-called "cyber terrorists". Under the changes, anyone suspected of preparing to hack or deface a website can be jailed for up to three years or fined up to five thousand U-S dollars.

Transcript:

DR CHEE: It's just another way that the government continues to use laws to begin to restrict the growth of the internet, the use of the internet for democratic purposes and this is just another example of it.
LOPRESTI: And just how real though is that threat from cyber terrorism? Is it a rising threat?

DR CHEE: "Well you know, you can't begin to try to work on some of these legislation to address the problem that you want to get at. But by coming up with laws that are just so vague and this allows this government to do almost anything. It's just another way that this government wants to tell the people that look, we are watching and we will take action for people who want to try to use the internet to promote democracy in Singapore."

LOPRESTI: You say that these laws are vague, and in that vein I guess you could say that there is very real possibility that the laws could be open to abuse?

DR CHEE: "Yes. I mean let me take you back to what 30 to 40 years ago when the internal security act was first put in place. At that time, you know the government was saying that well, it was targetting at the Communists. Well guess what? The law was repeatedly used on the ruling parties opponents, legitimate opponents, opponents who are elected opposition MP's and that for the last 20 to 30 years they have used it to crackdown on the democratic activist people who want us to see more freedom and human rights take place in Singapore and this is just another horrendous piece of legislation that will give this government even more unbridled power.

And there is absolutely no check and balance that we have here. I mean given the state of the opposition, given the dismal obscene of democracy here in general. It's suicide for democracy if we continue on this manner."

LOPRESTI: So would you describe these laws as the internet version, I guess of Singapore's internal security act?

DR CHEE: "Very much so. I think this has given again the government a new lease of life if you will in as far as cracking down on internet activity. People who genuinely want to push for a more democratic political change in Singapore and given this government can be excused to that it wants to take whatever action it wants to continue to perpetuate its authoritarian control."

LOPRESTI: Now that these laws have been passed, realistically what can the opposition do?

DR CHEE: "You know for us here the debate always goes on after the government makes the decision and you know given as I said the state of democracy in Singapore. It's a complete laugh that you know we all make this pretence of having this debate when things are shoved down our throats and government decides it does. And the worst part of it is we are unable, there's no way we can hold this government accountable. And it doesn't have to justify for any of its actions. It just goes ahead and does what it wants."

'"So really it doesn't come as a surprise. I mean you know people may so oh, you know look at this. Now we have this new law, but for us it's really just something that's very normal. It doesn't raise any eyebrows over here in Singapore."

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By intellectual Christopher Lingle...........(feared and driven out by PAP)
Singapore and Authoritarian Capitalism
by Christopher Lingle
Publisher: The Locke Institute, ISBN: 8485809521

Despite the impressive growth rates in the region, there are some serious questions about the policies and institutions in the high performing East Asian economies. Indeed, several of the traditional institutions can be expected to impose a binding constraint upon the continuation of the rapid economic growth in Singapore and in other countries in the region.

In particular, many of these institutions militate against individuality and individual rights and freedoms. In turn, "authoritarian capitalism" describes the operational elements of this particular development model. On one hand, authoritarian-capitalist regimes place a limited and selective set of persistent policy interventions into market activities. On the other hand, these same regimes impose heavy restrictions on political activity. Whereas, Soviet economies contrived to have an economy without prices, authoritarian capitalism presides over markets without the guarantee of individual freedoms or rights. As a result, there are conflicting and misleading signals about a relatively free economy whereas political freedoms are repressed within an authoritarian- based government. Singapore's single-party regime offers a model of authoritarian capitalism that may be followed by other single-party regimes in the region.

Although this economic development model bears strong similarities to "authoritarian socialism," authoritarian capitalism has been so far immune to the criticisms of their shared potential for failure. Apparently, the strong economic performance has led many observers to ignore the ill effects and the long run costs associated with authoritarian capitalism.

Acceptance of authoritarian capitalism as a viable and exportable model for development depends upon an understanding that economic and political liberties are not interdependent. However, similar faulty reasoning induced promoters of authoritarian socialism (communism) to overlook its most fatal contradiction. The collapse of communism provides evidence that repression of political freedoms will eventually undermine the activities that support economic growth. While authoritarianism can be consistent with short run economic gains, there are logical and economic limits to these results.

On the economic side, authoritarian capitalism involves the politicization of commerce and the commercialization of politics. Commerce is politicized when the profitability of economic actors depends more heavily upon relationships with the ruling party than the efficient use of scarce resources. Commercial politics describes the actions by ruling parties to develop their own sources of revenues through business transactions to decrease their dependency upon the electorate. These activities are likely to involve privileged, insider access to economic data that benefit the party and also allow party functionaries to enjoy private gains.

Despite the impressions to the contrary, authoritarian capitalist regimes employ extensive, if not always deep, interventions in the economy. Most of them have highly interventionist foreign exchange policies. These are implemented in support of industrial policies that target specific industries as leaders in their export-orientated industrialization (EOI) strategies. Investment funds and subsidies are directed toward selective areas of economic activity and, conversely, are diverted from use in other areas. Many of those countries applying EOI policies tend to be highly dependent upon foreign investment funds or technology or both, as well as access to foreign markets for their exports. This dependency on outsiders is exacerabated by the institutionalized restrictions upon the formations of domestic entrepreneurs to provide an indigenous source of economic growth.

An equally problematic issue relating to Singapore's growth is that it can be explained in large measure by the massive increases in input of labor and capital instead of from increases in efficiency or productivity. Most economists readily recognize that such input-driven growth will be limited by the law of diminishing returns. Following this logic, East Asia's "miracle economies" mirror the early stages of growth in the Soviet Union that obviously proved to be unsustainable. In all events, the necessary sources of increases in productivity are inventiveness and free thinking. Unfortunately, policies under authoritarian capitalism suppresses individualism and intellectual freedom and will greatly impair the formation of entrepreneurs.

There are few signs that regimes such as Singapore's are willing or able to undertake the necessary changes to modify their policies and institutions that have generated the conditions of "parasite economies" where they depend upon the financial capital or the creativity and inventiveness of other countries. In the long run, the economic arrangements associated with East Asian authoritarian capitalism are unlikely to sustain the levels of high performance recorded in recent years.

Singapore's authoritarian-capitalist regime has its own peculiar political arrangements that mesh with its economic policies. By combining a sense of national insecurity and dread of the unknown with the fear of government retribution, Singapore's ruling party has implemented a special form of "Asian democracy" that can be identified as phobocracy. The rule-by-fear government of the People's Action Party (PAP) regime judiciously combines a western democratic vocabulary with a particular set of traditional values that it claims are unique to Asia.

In order to maintain a disciplined and docile electorate, the PAP rulers rely upon a beguiling combination of reason and force. However, their idea of reasoning is limited to an unbalanced insistence upon only the advantages of communitarian arrangements and the necessity of consensus building. Their ability to construct these incomplete images of political utopia is supported by a subservient domestic media and a cowed international media. The passivity of the media results from legislative and judicial actions that operate at the behest of the PAP-controlled executive branch. In sum, the regime exercises obsessive and complete control over all branches of government and media as well as other elements of civil society. In turn, there are few limits to the amount of force that can be wielded as reprisal against critics or political rivals.

Singapore's regime practices a form of "soft authoritarianism" without political murders or disappearances. Nonetheless, executive control over the judiciary and the legislature means that law follows the whims of the regime. One element of the illusion of the legal system is the scrupulous application of justice in cases that involve commerce, particularly when it affects the interests of multinational corporations. The resulting system is one of rule by and for rulers in place of the rule of law. The compliance of the courts leads to "lawless order" and is a conspicuous contradiction of the reputation for Singapore's corruption-free government.

The criminalization of politics and politicization of crime represent several of the other institutional arrangements associated with Singapore's authoritarian capitalism. Politics in Singapore is criminalized in the evident pattern whereby opponents of the regime are sued for criminal defamation after criticizing the actions of the ruling party. Moreover, the authorities in Singapore use crime as a political weapon. One aspect of this involves the manipulation of perceptions and the apparent masking of crime statistics to provide the illusion of a crime-free environment. Another aspect is to place the blame for much of the crime that does occur on westerners and their decadent influences.

Blindness to the shortcomings of the intricate and extensive elements of their development strategies has left the PAP open to a potentially serious crisis. It may not be the forces of modernization, per se, that prompts political change in Singapore. A failure in their economic structures may come first. A serious long run challenge that must be faced is how to escape the entrenched dependencies with the developed economies. However, the incentive structures associated with authoritarian capitalism work against the necessary emergence of local talent to serve either as entrepreneurs or as researchers capable of doing original research.

Of more immediate concern is the stability of Singapore's economy that exhibits the classic symptoms of a property and stock market bubble. There is no reason to expect that the record of centuries of the collapse of bubbles can be changed even by Singapore's famously efficient bureaucrats or its supposedly squeaky clean rulers. The question of the bursting or deflating of the speculative bubble is a matter of when, not if.

Happily, there is no doubt that the next century will witness a continuation in the rising fortunes and growing political importance of East Asia. Even so, it may be premature to anticipate that a simplistic extrapolation of the recent economic performance in the region will be an accurate harbinger of its post-millennial achievements. It may be just as likely that the authoritarian-capitalist regimes will set another record. Perhaps they will match their rapid pace of economic development by consigning themselves to the dustbin of history more quickly than was their predecessor, authoritarian socialism.

10 Dec 2003

Oligarchy - Any form of government in which there is ‘rule by a few’; for example, by members of a self-regulating élite having domination over a larger society.

Yes, we all know that 'democracy' is an essentially contested concept. But this is getting beyond a joke.

An open society requires a free press and high levels of transparency, standards of accounting need to be high including disclosure of accounts and democratization.

Democratization will provide Singapore with flexibility, sustainability and legitimacy. It would also enable the replacement of ministers on a grand scale, bringing new life-blood into the stagnated old-guard that have dominated the 'group-thought' for the last 30 plus years.